Taipingshan Cypress root

Taiwan's "false cypresses"-trees of the genus Chamaecyparis, a subdivision of the cypress family, Cupressaceae-are relics of the ice ages which brought them to our geologically young island. Thirty million years ago, Chamaecyparis species were distributed all over the world. But after the ice ages, the high mountains of Taiwan, which were squeezed up from the edges of two tectonic plates a million years ago, became their refuge. Today, only six false cypress species remain anywhere in the world, scattered far apart in North America, Japan and Taiwan. Two of them are native to Taiwan: the Taiwan red cypress (Chamaecyparis formosensis, a.k.a. the Formosan cypress) and the Taiwan yellow cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana, a variety of hinoki cypress).